page_title: History of philosophy in Poland
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: History of philosophy in Poland / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: Picture of Stanislaw Brzozowski, 1878-1911, Polish writer and philosopher.
context_page_description: The history of philosophy in Poland parallels the evolution of philosophy in Europe in general.
context_section_description: Even before Poland regained independence at the end of World War I, her intellectual life continued to develop.  This was the case particularly in Russian-ruled Warsaw, where in lieu of underground lectures and secret scholarly organizations a Wolna Wszechnica Polska (Free Polish University) was created in 1905 and the tireless Władysław Weryho (1868–1916) had in 1898 founded Poland's first philosophical journal, Przegląd Filozoficzny (The Philosophical Review), and in 1904 a Philosophical Society.
  In 1907 Weryho founded a Psychological Society, and subsequently Psychological and Philosophical Institutes.  About 1910 the small number of professionally trained philosophers increased sharply, as individuals returned who had been inspired by Mahrburg's underground lectures to study philosophy in Austrian-ruled Lwów and Kraków or abroad.
  Kraków as well, especially after 1910, saw a quickening of the philosophical movement, particularly at the Polish Academy of Learning, where at the prompting of Władysław Heinrich there came into being in 1911 a Committee for the History of Polish Philosophy and there was an immense growth in the number of philosophical papers and publications, no longer only of a historical character.
  At Lwów, Kazimierz Twardowski (1866–1938) from 1895 stimulated a lively philosophical movement, in 1904 founded the Polish Philosophical Society, and in 1911 began publication of Ruch Filozoficzny (The Philosophical Movement).
  There was growing interest in western philosophical currents, and much discussion of Pragmatism and Bergsonism, psychoanalysis, Henri Poincaré's Conventionalism, Edmund Husserl's Phenomenology, the Marburg School, and the social-science methodologies of Wilhelm Dilthey and Heinrich Rickert.  At the same time, original ideas developed on Polish soil.
   
  Those who distinguished themselves in Polish philosophy in these pre-World War I years of the twentieth century, formed two groups.
  One group developed apart from institutions of higher learning and learned societies, and appealed less to trained philosophers than to broader circles, which it (if but briefly) captured.  It constituted a reaction against the preceding period of Positivism, and included Stanisław Brzozowski (1878–1911), Wincenty Lutosławski (1863–1954) and, to a degree, Edward Abramowski (1868–1918).
  The second group of philosophers who started off Polish philosophy in the twentieth century had an academic character.  They included Władysław Heinrich (1869–1957) in Kraków, Kazimierz Twardowski (1866–1938) in Lwów, and Leon Petrażycki (1867–1931) abroad—all three, active members of the Polish Academy of Learning.  Despite the considerable differences among them, they shared some basic features:  all three were empiricists concerned not with metaphysics but with the foundations of philosophy; they were interested in philosophy itself, not merely its history; they understood philosophy in positive terms, but none of them was a Positivist in the old style.
  Following the restoration of Poland's independence in 1918, the two older universities (Kraków University, Lwów University) were joined by four new ones (Warsaw University, Poznań University, Wilno University, Lublin University).  New philosophical journals appeared; all the university cities formed philosophical associations; conventions of Polish philosophers were held; philosophy became more professional, academic, scholarly.
  A characteristic of the interbellum was that maximalist, metaphysical currents began to fade away.  The dominant ambition in philosophical theory now was not breadth but precision.  This was a period of specialization, consistent with the conviction that general philosophy would not yield precise results such as could be obtained in logic, psychology or the history of philosophy.
  A few individuals did develop a general philosophical outlook:  notably, Tadeusz Kotarbiński (1886–1981), Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885–1939), and Roman Ingarden (1893–1970).
  Otherwise, however, specialization was the rule.  The Kraków school, true to tradition, showed an e
caption: Stanisław Brzozowski
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